Two Paths Diverged
by JustDeedee
Summary: Prequel/Backstory to 'Homecoming': One night of passion and a poorly-conceived time jump were all that it took to change Wyatt and Lucy's lives forever. AU LYATT heavy angst/pregnancy/romance with lots of input from Rufus and Jiya. Canon divergent starting at the end of S1x09.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Many thanks to those of you who followed/favorited/reviewed 'Homecoming'! In preparing to write the much-requested sequel** **, I got to thinking that it would be fun** ** _(and maybe a bit helpful)_** **to write a** ** _prequel_** **first, in order to answer some of the many questions that y'all had about the backstory. So here's the start of that, for what it's worth, with much more to come. FYI, this is a LYATT story, with canon divergence starting after S1x9. ALSO, here be romance, yes, as well as humor, but also LOTS of ANGST in order to properly set the stage for 'Homecoming'.**

* * *

The second that the Lifeboat door slid open, Lucy scrambled out through the hatch. Not even bothering to wait for the retractable stairs to be shoved into place _(let alone a helping hand from one of her teammates)_ , she leapt to the floor, and sprinted from the hangar.

"Lucy, wait! Lucy!" Wyatt hollered after her as he, too, clambered from the time machine. But she either hadn't heard or was purposely choosing to ignore him. Wyatt strongly suspected the latter. "Damn it!" he swore under his breath, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides in frustration.

"Somebody want to tell me what all that was about?" Agent Christopher asked, glancing between the obviously irritated soldier and the rather chagrined-looking pilot who was now making his own more reasonably-paced descent from the Lifeboat. "Did something happen to Lucy on the mission?"

"No, but it's her birthday today, so you might want to watch what you say to her," Rufus grumbled. "Apparently turning 35 means certain subjects are no longer funny."

"Certain subjects?" Agent Christopher frowned in confusion. "What do you mean by _that_?"

"I think what Rufus _meant_ to say is that he's a total _dumbass_ , and should really learn to keep his big mouth _shut_ about things that are none of his damn business!" Wyatt snarled, glaring intensely at his teammate.

"It was just a _joke_ , dude!" Rufus argued in self-defense. "How was I supposed to know she was so sensitive about that?"

"Sensitive about what? Rufus, what exactly did you say to Lucy?" Agent Christopher demanded, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I may have, uh, suggested that she and Wy…." He glanced over at Wyatt, and quickly reconsidered his words, not wanting to test the earnestness of the threat clearly written in the other man's eyes. "Umm…that the alarm on her biological clock was about to go off, and that she might want to, uh, do something about that soon?"

Judging by her loud gasp, and the death stare she was currently leveling at him, Rufus figured that his boss hadn't found his attempt at mid-life birthday humor any more amusing than Lucy or Wyatt had. _Damn – tough crowd!_ Jiya would have laughed, he thought. Probably. Depending on the day, and her mood, and….

"OK, so maybe it _wasn't_ my best joke," Rufus grudgingly conceded. "But you've got to admit that Lucy's been acting pretty damn weird lately, and I just thought teasing her a little might break her out of whatever funk she's been in."

Neither Agent Christopher nor Wyatt responded. The matching scowls on their faces _certainly_ spoke volumes, however.

Rufus took that as his cue to exit the proverbial stage, before his disgruntled audience starting throwing tomatoes _(or, in Wyatt's case, punches)_. "Yeah, I'm just gonna…see ya!" He dashed off, having no particular destination in mind other than 'away from here'.

Watching Rufus go with a long-suffering sigh and a slightly disgusted shake of her head, Agent Christopher turned to Wyatt. "Sometimes I seriously wonder if his mother dropped him on his head as a child. How Jiya puts up with that mouth of his all the time is _completely_ beyond me."

Wyatt remained silent, mulling over Rufus' words. His friend was right, of course – Lucy _had_ been acting strange lately. Granted, Rufus' 'joke' had been terrible _(_ _ **and**_ _terribly intrusive)_. But being so upset by it that she'd raced off before Rufus could even _try_ to apologize? That just wasn't like Lucy. At least it didn't used to be. Recently, however, it seemed more the norm than the exception for her.

Reflecting on the past two days, Wyatt mentally enumerated all of the odd behaviors that he'd observed in Lucy just on this last mission. Her frequent disappearances – without warning or subsequent explanation – had kept him on edge the entire trip, and _(naturally)_ had led to more than their usual share of arguments. After all, how could he possibly protect her if he didn't know where the hell she was at any given time? Then there was the whole food thing. Lucy had never been picky before about what they ate on these trips, as long as they ate _something_. But damn if she hadn't rejected every last bit of what was on offer, including the bread. Who the hell didn't eat _bread_ , for god's sake? Throw in her flat-out refusal to share a hotel room with him and Rufus, _and_ her total freak-out when he'd tried to hug her that morning, and well, Wyatt was feeling more than a little concerned.

Clearly _something_ was up with Lucy, but Wyatt had yet to figure it out. Whatever it was, though, she apparently had no desire to discuss it with him. He'd tried – several times now – to get her to open up to him, but to no avail. Which was odd in and of itself, considering that she typically shared everything with him. Well, maybe not _everything_ , but pretty damn close.

If he were a braver man, Wyatt would have already locked Lucy in a room, and refused to let her out until she started talking. But given the current ambiguity of their relationship status _(thanks to Flynn, things had been stop-and-go between them the past few months_ – _a circumstance that frustrated Wyatt to no end)_ , he'd been too afraid of screwing things up with her to do so. Unfortunately, it wasn't doing either of them any good to keep ignoring the elephant in the room.

Whatever the consequences, Wyatt needed to find out what was going on with Lucy, and try to help her through it. That's what they'd always done for each other, wasn't it? And now that they were…. What _were_ they, exactly? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Friends-with-that-one-time-after-Arkansas-benefits and a sincere desire _(on his part, at least)_ to be more? Well, _whatever_ they were, he was sure that talking about things like this came with the territory. Only maybe not today – it _was_ Lucy's birthday, and she deserved to have what remained of it go better than it had so far.

"Master Sergeant?" Agent Christopher waved a hand repeatedly in front of his face, startling him out of his reverie.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, what did you say?" he answered, slightly disturbed at only just having realized that she'd been speaking to him the entire time.

"Lucy – is she alright? Should I be concerned about her for any reason?" his boss reiterated.

"No need to be concerned, ma'am. There's nothing wrong with Lucy that a little downtime won't fix," Wyatt reassured her. And perhaps, he thought, that wasn't even a lie. Maybe Lucy simply needed a nice long break from the insanity that had become their daily lives. Wyatt desperately wished that he could give her _that_ for her birthday. But for now, a fun evening out with their friends _(assuming that Flynn didn't decide to jump again so soon)_ would have to suffice.

* * *

Her traitorous stomach finally empty, Lucy stumbled to the bathroom sink. Twisting on the cold water, she quickly rinsed her mouth, and splashed the sweat from her brow before drying her damp hands on the billowing skirt of her dress.

That had been a close one, hadn't it? Far _too_ close, in fact. Thankfully, few of her coworkers were likely to question her mad dash from the Lifeboat hangar, it being absolutely no business of theirs. Unfortunately, the one person who _was_ likely to question her rapid exit was also the one person she really wished _hadn't_ been paying attention.

Hopefully Wyatt would simply chalk it up to Rufus' horribly insensitive _(though well-timed, as far as she was concerned)_ 'joke'. But what about next time, or the time after that? How much longer could she hope to keep this up before Wyatt finally figured it out – before _everyone_ figured it out? Dang it, she was totally _screwed_ , wasn't she?

Snorting at her particularly apt mental choice of words, Lucy buried her face in her trembling hands and willed herself not to start crying again. She'd done too much of that lately as it was, and dissolving into a blubbering mess right now certainly wouldn't do her any good, would it? Not when her friends were awaiting her return so that they could move on to the supposedly _fun_ portion of the evening that they had planned. Nope, the next round of her pity party would just have to wait until after her _birthday_ party was over.

"Hey, birthday girl! You OK in there?" Jiya's concerned voice sounded through the bathroom door.

Forcing a smile to her face in spite of her inner tumult, Lucy unlocked the door and yanked it open. "Oh yeah!" she assured her in the cheeriest voice she could muster. "Just, you know, taking advantage of the modern plumbing to freshen up a bit."

"Yeah, I imagine the 1850s were rather lacking in _that_ respect, weren't they? Not to mention a dozen other ways that would make it complicated to be a woman," Jiya sympathized.

"You have _no_ idea, and trust me – you _don't_ want to!" Lucy laughed halfheartedly, thinking back over the many ways she'd been forced to improvise over the past couple days in order to tend her personal needs. Between her bulky, overly restrictive clothing, the total lack of privacy that came from traveling with two men, and – yes – the absence of anything even _remotely_ resembling modern amenities and facilities, it had definitely been 'complicated', to say the very least.

"Speaking of which, let's get you out of that archaic dress." Jiya started off towards the wardrobe bay. "Somehow I can't see it going over well in the club scene."

"The club scene?" Lucy asked in confusion, trailing obediently behind her friend.

"Yeah. Rufus, Wyatt, and I thought it would be fun to take you club hopping tonight, since you mentioned a few weeks ago that you'd never really done that before."

"Oh. That sounds, uh, interesting," Lucy fibbed. In truth, it sounded to her like a recipe for disaster, given her current physical condition. Alcohol…hours-long restroom lines…loud, thumping music…the high probability that Wyatt would want to dance with her. Shoot, what was she going to do?

"You know, when you said you were planning a birthday party for me, I thought it would be something a bit quieter, like maybe pizza and a board game at your place," Lucy ventured, hoping her friend would take the hint.

" _That's_ your idea of a birthday party?" Jiya asked sardonically, quirking an eyebrow at Lucy.

"Well, and cake and ice cream, too, of course. Maybe some, uh, balloons and party hats and blowers…." Lucy replied. Even as the words were tumbling from her mouth, she recognized how lame they probably sounded to the younger, inarguably hipper woman.

"Should we get you a piñata, too? What are you, like, six years old?" Jiya scoffed. "Seriously, Lucy, we can eat pizza and play board games any old night. It's your _birthday_ , woman – live a little! Besides, we already have our route all planned out, _and_ we rented a limo so none of us has to play designated driver."

"A limo?" Lucy squeaked. She knew that those _weren't_ cheap to rent – not on a Saturday night in the city at least. Dang it, she couldn't let her friends _(who were just as grossly underpaid as she was)_ be out that kind of money for no good reason. Well, no good reason that _they_ were currently aware of anyway. She'd simply have to hope that her body cooperated for a few hours, and maybe come up with a few creative excuses for not participating in certain activities. Not that _that_ was anything new lately. "Alright," she reluctantly agreed, "I'm in."

"Yes!" Jiya pumped her fist in the air exuberantly, steering Lucy into an empty changing room, and following her inside. "Wait until you see the dress that I picked out for you," she gushed. "It's formfitting in all the right places. I promise, Wyatt won't be able to take his eyes off of you all night. Happy Birthday to you, right?"

 _Great_ , Lucy thought sarcastically as Jiya began to unbutton her antiquated dress. This night just kept getting better and better, didn't it? A formfitting dress guaranteed to attract the exact sort of attention from Wyatt that she _didn't_ want right now? Oh yeah – happy birthday to her indeed!

Half an hour later, Lucy found herself groaning in extreme discomfort as Jiya attempted, for the third time, to zip up the slinky, modern dress that she'd chosen for Lucy to wear for their evening out. "It's no use, Jiya – it doesn't fit," she moaned somewhat forlornly.

"I don't get it. The tag says it's a size 2," Jiya insisted, continuing to yank at the zipper.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly a size 2 anymore, am I?" Lucy snapped. "Don't tell me you didn't notice when you were tying my corset the other day that you had to leave it a lot looser than usual."

"OK, yeah, I noticed," Jiya admitted reluctantly. "But hey – who am I to judge? I mean, with your hectic schedule, you practically live on fast food these days, right? And goodness knows you never get enough sleep. So it's only natural that you've put on a little weight. Don't worry, though – as soon as we catch Flynn, I'm sure it will all fall right back off."

If only it were that simple. Though grateful for her friend's sweet attempt at making her feel better about her expanding waistline, Lucy couldn't allow Jiya to labor under the gross misconception that she'd simply 'put on a little weight'. It had nothing whatsoever to do with vanity, but rather with _practicality_.

Considering how unsuccessful the 'time team' had been at apprehending Garcia Flynn so far, it wasn't likely that the missions would be ending any time soon. And that meant that, for the foreseeable future at least, Jiya would be helping Lucy on and off with her often complicated, period-appropriate costumes. Though the woman hadn't made the connection yet, Lucy knew that it was only a matter of time before she did.

"Um, about that…." Lucy paused and nibbled at her lower lip anxiously, suddenly realizing that it might be bad form to share her news with Jiya when she hadn't even discussed the situation with Wyatt yet. On the other hand, it _would_ be nice to have someone in her corner – someone she could actually _talk to_ about her complicated predicament. Plus, if Jiya was _in_ on her secret, Lucy might actually stand a chance of getting through the evening ahead without inadvertently spilling it.

"Yes?" Jiya asked somewhat distractedly. She was determined to beat that zipper into submission, if for no other reason than that her friend deserved to feel beautiful on her birthday.

Reaching back to pull Jiya's hands away from the hopelessly too-tight contraption, Lucy whirled around to face her. "Look at me, Jiya. I mean, really _look_." She inhaled a deep breath for courage, and then stepped out of the overly snug dress.

At first puzzled by what exactly Lucy wanted her to see, Jiya's eyes quickly zeroed in on Lucy's stomach, and the unmistakable swelling there that her friend had just revealed. "Is that…are you…Oh my god, Lucy!" she stammered, her eyes growing round in astonishment.

"Yeah." Lucy winced at her friend's reaction. That pretty much summed it up, didn't it? And Jiya didn't even know the half of it.

"How far?" Unthinkingly, Jiya reached out, stopping just short of the small but obvious baby bump that Lucy was sporting.

"18 weeks." Though feeling incredibly vulnerable, Lucy also couldn't help but smile at the expression of total disbelief on her friend's face, or her obvious desire to _touch_ the source of her bafflement. Sympathizing with the shell-shocked woman _(Lucy was still expecting_ – hoping even – _to wake up one morning and find out that this had just been one long, incredibly stressful dream)_ , Lucy reached for Jiya's hands, and settled them gently over her belly.

"How? I mean, I know _how_ , but…. Geez, woman, why the heck didn't you _tell_ me?" Jiya squealed.

Permission granted, Jiya smoothed her hands over her friend's distended abdomen. 18 weeks? _Seriously_? It must have taken all kinds of crazy effort on Lucy and Wyatt's parts to keep this a secret for so long, especially from Rufus. "Wait, does Rufus know?" Jiya blurted. "If so, I might just have to kill him for not telling me!"

"Um, no, you're the first person I've told, actually," Lucy quietly confided.

"Well, the first person after Wyatt, right?" Marveling at the fact that her friend was growing a whole new _person_ inside her body, Jiya could barely contain her excitement. "Come on, Lucy, I need details, like _now_!" she screeched in delight. "How did you tell Wyatt? Did you do it in some totally adorable way, or was he, like, there when you took the test? How did he react? I bet he fainted, right? _Please_ tell me he fainted! Oh my gosh, I'd have totally paid money to see that! Wait – does this mean I get to be an auntie? It does, doesn't it? And Rufus gets to be an uncle! Oh my gosh, Lucy, I'm so happy for you guys!"

Lucy didn't think that she'd ever seen a bigger grin on anyone's face than the one Jiya was currently wearing. Consequently, it nearly broke her heart to have to burst her friend's bubble of elation. But it simply couldn't be helped. Gripping both of Jiya's hands in hers, she gently removed them from her body, and turned away from her friend. "I, um…." Lowering her eyes to the floor, she swallowed hard against the golfball-sized lump of sadness and regret forming in her throat. "Actually, Wyatt doesn't even…."

"You know what?" Jiya interrupted. "Hold that thought for a minute, OK? I just realized that the guys are probably waiting for us, and you're not even _dressed_ yet. So let me just go swap this…." She held the ill-fitting dress aloft. "...Out for something even _more_ beautiful, and then you can tell me all about it, alright? I'll be right back, I promise."

Before Lucy could even think to respond, Jiya pushed the changing room door open, and scurried from the room, determined to find something that would show off Lucy's darling little baby bump to advantage.

Humming to herself as she searched through the costume racks, Jiya couldn't stop thinking about how thrilled she was for Lucy and Wyatt. While some might consider choosing to have a child together a pretty reckless move for two people who'd only recently realized that they were in love, Jiya knew better. Lucy and Wyatt were as close to 'meant to be' as anything she'd ever seen in her life, and as far as she was concerned, this baby was a natural extension of that. Besides, if there was anything that she'd learned in the last year, it was that time was precious. Good for Lucy and Wyatt for not wanting to waste a second of it!

Soon happily ensconced in her daydreams of having a niece or nephew to spoil, Jiya almost didn't notice when Rufus stepped up behind her. Luckily, her boyfriend wasn't _quite_ as stealthy as he believed himself to be.

"Hey, you and Lucy about ready to go?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist, and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "The limo's already here, and Wyatt's pretty anxious to get going. He says to tell you that if you girls aren't out there in the next five minutes, you're going to have to hoof it."

" _Right_. Well, you just tell Master Sergeant Studly that his baby mama needs a few more minutes to make herself beautiful for him, OK?" Jiya turned and pressed a quick kiss to her boyfriend's lips. "We'll be out just as soon as I find Lucy a dress that fits. Which, come to think of it, might take more than a few minutes. I mean, it's not like Mason planned on Lucy getting pregnant when he ordered these outfits, right?"

"Um…." Rufus stared down at her, blinking repeatedly. "Did you…." He shook his head as if to dislodge an errant thought. "I must be more tired than I thought, because there's _no_ _way_ you said what I think you just said."

"Oops!" Jiya giggled. "I forgot that Lucy said she hadn't told you yet. Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag now, right? Surprise! You're going to be an uncle! Isn't that awesome?"

Watching as Rufus' face rapidly contorted through a series of expressions, none of which seemed to reflect excitement, Jiya began to feel concerned. "Are you OK?" she finally asked.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, no." He alternately nodded and shook his head. "Yeah. Not really, no."

"What's wrong? You don't like the idea of being an uncle?" she teased him. "I mean, I know you probably think that makes you, like, really _old_ or something, but come on. This is exciting, Rufus! Lucy and Wyatt are going to have a _baby_!"

"Um, about that," Rufus finally replied after a long pause, his tone far more serious than Jiya would have expected. "Did Lucy also happen to mention that she hasn't told _Wyatt_ yet?"

"What are you talking about?" Certain that he must be joking, Jiya smacked Rufus' arm. "Of _course_ Wyatt knows! I mean, she's 18 weeks along, for goodness sake. How could he _not_ know by now?"

"Yeah, well, as unlikely as it seems, the fact is that I spend pretty much 24-7 with those two," he retorted. "So trust me when I tell you that Wyatt definitely does _not_ know that Lucy's pregnant."

"Lucy's _what_?"

Jiya and Rufus cringed simultaneously at the sound of the strident, unmistakably pissed-off query from the man whose father-to-be status they'd just been discussing.

"Well, crap," Rufus muttered. "Apparently he does _now_."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks so much for the follows and reviews - it means so much to me to be part of such a supportive community of Timeless-loving readers and writers! My sincerest apologies for the delay in posting this chapter - for some reason, the Doc Manager kept converting it to code (NOT helpful), and it took me a couple days to figure out the problem. At any rate, here it is, and hopefully it hits the spot. Much more to come - thanks again for reading! :-)**

Pacing back and forth next to the limousine, Wyatt checked his watch again. He'd sent Rufus inside to tell the girls that the limo was leaving – with or without them – in 5 minutes, and that was 13 minutes ago. What was taking them all so long? Lucy and Jiya were masters at getting into and out of complex historical garb at near-record speeds – how difficult could changing into modern-day dresses _possibly_ be by comparison? Of course, since the team wasn't currently 'on the clock', Wyatt recognized that there was no _actual_ need for his teammates to rush. That didn't stop him, however, from _hoping_ that they would.

Given the inherently unpredictable nature of their jobs _(Flynn jumped whenever it suited him, and they had no choice but to follow)_ , an entire evening off – one that they could just spend doing something _fun_ – was an exceedingly rare treat. Wyatt figured that it had been at least a couple of months since he and his teammates had enjoyed a night out together – longer still since he and Lucy had had any time alone. Needless to say, he was extremely eager to get going, and to see where the night might lead.

Determined to not let another minute go to waste, Wyatt headed back inside Mason Industries in search of his slow-moving friends. As he strode into the wardrobe bay, he spotted Rufus and Jiya chatting near one of the garment racks. He started towards them, intent on giving them a hard time for holding up the party with their 'gab fest', when Jiya suddenly smacked Rufus on the arm.

 _Uh-oh._ Lover's quarrel? Well _that_ didn't bode well for the evening ahead, did it? Not wanting to make things worse by interrupting, Wyatt quickly turned to leave, only to halt mid-step when Jiya's fervent words – words that included _his_ name – reached his ears.

 _"Of_ course _Wyatt knows! I mean, she's 18 weeks along, for goodness sake. How could he_ not _know by now?"_

Wyatt flinched, barely holding back his gasp of surprise. Rufus and Jiya were arguing about _him?_ About whether he _knew_ something yet or not? 'She' – she _who_? And '18 weeks along' – what the heck did _that_ mean?

None of what Jiya had said made the _slightest_ sense to Wyatt. Considering that he was eavesdropping on his friends' private conversation, however, he reckoned it would be rude _(or rather, even_ more _rude)_ to ask for clarification. Weighing his options carefully, he ultimately surrendered to his curiosity, and continued to listen in. Surely the fact that Rufus and Jiya were talking about _him_ granted him certain immunity to the rules of polite behavior, didn't it?

 _"Yeah, well, as unlikely as it seems, the fact is that I spend pretty much 24-7 with those two. So trust me when I tell you that Wyatt definitely does_ not _know that Lucy's pregnant."_

Rufus' unwitting revelation stunned Wyatt to his very core, momentarily robbing him of the ability to think or feel anything at all. "Lucy's _what_?" he bellowed reflexively, without even realizing that he'd said the words aloud, the volume of his own voice breaking through his mental and emotional daze. He swayed a bit unsteadily on his feet as a profusion of questions and conflicting feelings hit him all at once.

Lucy was _pregnant_? She was going to have a _baby_ – _his_ baby? He was going to be a _father_? Could he _handle_ being a father? Did he even _want_ to be a father – with Lucy as the _mother_ , as his partner in parenting? How did _Lucy_ feel about all of this? Did the way that either of them felt even _matter_ now that they had a baby on the way? A baby that…Wait – what the _hell_?

Wyatt's speeding train of thought suddenly screeched to a halt. A _baby_? How was that even _possible_? It took months _(sometimes even years)_ of actively 'trying' for a woman to conceive a child, didn't it? And he and Lucy most definitely had _not_ been 'trying'.

They'd only ever spent one night together, for chrissake – one _glorious_ night that had _(finally)_ obliterated the walls behind which they'd both been hiding their feelings for each other, but still – _just one night_. And that was, what – four months ago now? Admittedly, they hadn't exactly been 'careful' _(all rational thought having burned to ash in the searing heat of the moment and all)_ , but Lucy would have told him by now if their risky behavior had resulted in a pregnancy.

Since Lucy _hadn't_ told him any such thing, then it couldn't possibly be true, Wyatt reasoned _(even if a small part of him wished that it were)_. He had to have simply _misheard_ what Rufus and Jiya had said. That was the only logical explanation _(and doubtless karmic payback for eavesdropping in the first place)_.

Feeling the weight of his friends' eyes on him, Wyatt pivoted towards them, fully prepared to apologize for his rude behavior. With one glance at their faces, however – their openly sympathetic and earnestly apologetic faces – the words crumbled into dust on his tongue. Oh god…he _had_ heard them correctly.

"But…that's not…." Wyatt floundered, trying to make sense of it all. Yet there was simply no way that it _could_ make sense, unless... Oh. Recalling all of Lucy's strange behaviors from over the course of the past few weeks, Wyatt suddenly felt like the world's biggest idiot. She _was_ pregnant – she'd simply chosen not to tell him. Worse, she'd lied to him again and again in order to keep him from finding out.

'Angry' couldn't begin to touch how Wyatt felt at that realization.

How many times in the past several weeks had he asked – begged – Lucy to talk to him about what was going on with her? And how many times had she flat-out rejected his offer of a sympathetic ear and a loving shoulder to cry on, claiming that there was absolutely _nothing_ going on with her at all? At the same time, she'd seen fit to level with Jiya and Rufus, hadn't she – to spill every last little detail to them, even though it wasn't _their_ child that she was carrying?

 _Why?_ Why in the _world_ would Lucy do that? Why would she purposely go out of her way to keep something so incredibly important from him, Wyatt wondered. Then it hit him – a second epiphany that was far, _far_ worse than the first: Lucy didn't want him to be a part of this. She didn't want him involved in her pregnancy or – apparently – the life of their unborn child. And damn if that didn't tear Wyatt's heart to shreds.

He'd thought that he and Lucy were building something together – something meaningful and lasting – something infinitely more precious than anything either of them had ever experienced before in their lives. Sure they still had a lot to figure out, but he'd felt certain that they would get there eventually, once Flynn stopped being such a thorn in their side and they could actually spend some freaking time together. Apparently, though, he'd thought wrong – very, _very_ wrong. Wyatt supposed that he shouldn't be surprised, though. Hadn't he known all along that Lucy was way too good for the likes of him?

Lucy was brilliant and beautiful – highly educated, cultured, classy, and accomplished – and by far the most caring, compassionate, and wholly good person that Wyatt had ever met.

He, on the other hand, was little more than 'poor white trash' from a hick town – a fully expendable grunt whose only means of earning a living was taking bullets so that other people _(other_ good _people like Lucy)_ didn't have to. He was a worthless douchebag – a reckless hothead who had left his own wife on the side of a road to die simply because he couldn't control his jealousy. He was a loser in every sense of the word, whose only real accomplishment in life was consistently failing everyone he'd ever cared about.

Yet somehow, at some point, Wyatt had begun to believe that _Lucy_ felt differently – that she _(by the grace of some wholly undeserved miracle)_ saw _more_ in him – _better_ in him – than just some broken down worthless excuse for a human being. More, she'd convinced him to want to be – to _strive_ to be – the man that she seemed to see – the man that she liked, that she possibly even _loved_.

Well at least there was one good thing to come from _that_ , Wyatt mused: he could now add 'monumentally self-delusional' and 'dense as dirt' to his résumé of personal qualities, couldn't he?

"Are you OK, Wyatt?" Jiya asked tentatively. Approaching him as slowly and cautiously as one might approach a feral animal, she laid a conciliatory hand on his arm. "I'm so, _so_ sorry. But I'm sure that Lucy…."

"Don't, Jiya. Just…just _don't_ , OK?" Wyatt croaked, shrugging off her hand. Lucy had made her choice, and he'd just have to live with it, however much that hurt. He didn't need Jiya trying to explain to him what was already crystal clear, and he _certainly_ didn't want or need her pity.

Giving her a wide berth, he moved towards Rufus. "So, uh, the limo's waiting whenever you guys are ready, and I already gave the driver the planned route and my credit card info to cover the cost, so you're all set. Have a fun time tonight, OK?"

"Wait – _what_?" Rufus frowned at Wyatt, brows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean 'have a fun time'? You're not coming with?"

"And here I thought _I_ was the biggest idiot in the room," Wyatt chuckled half-heartedly. With a parting pat to his friend's shoulder, and a weak smile that didn't come anywhere close to reaching his eyes, he turned and strode towards the exit.

"Wyatt, wait!" Rufus called after him. "Come on, buddy, you can't just _leave_. It's Lucy's birthday! Let's talk about this, OK?"

But Wyatt had neither the desire nor the time to talk. He had a hot date with a bottle of the world's cheapest whisky, and – unlike his friends – he very much valued punctuality.

Rufus felt his heart sink into his stomach as he watched an obviously distraught Wyatt retreat from the room. "Is it just me, or did we just, like, totally wreck Lucy's birthday _and_ her and Wyatt's relationship?" he asked dejectedly as Jiya rejoined him.

"Yeah, I kinda think we did." Jiya sighed, mentally kicking herself, both for blabbing Lucy's news to Rufus, and for not paying attention to who else was in the room when she did so. Although, to be fair, Lucy hadn't told her _not_ to tell Rufus. Neither had she mentioned the small-but-amazingly-significant fact that she hadn't told Wyatt yet. Then again, Jiya hadn't exactly given Lucy the chance to tell her much of anything before she'd raced out of the changing room, had she?

"They shoot! They score! Two points for Team Riya, and the crowd goes _wild!"_ Rufus snarked in his best imitation of a sports announcer's voice. "Seriously, though, what do we do now? I mean, we can't just _leave_ it like this, can we? If I know Wyatt, he'll be drunk off his ass for at least the next week, which means he won't be worth squat to us if Flynn decides to jump. And Lucy…well, who the hell knows what Lucy will do when she finds out, but whatever it is, it probably won't be good for her _or_ the baby."

As if summoned by the mention of her name, Lucy promptly leaned out of the dressing room. "Hey, Jiya – did you find a dress yet?" she inquired cheerfully. Spotting Rufus, she immediately ducked back inside the room, tugging the door most of the way closed. "It's just…it's getting kind of late, and I'm sure Wyatt is burning a hole in the parking lot with his pacing by now," she called through the small opening. "If we're not out there soon, he'll probably threaten to make us walk."

Momentarily forgetting the events of the past few minutes, Jiya grinned at the thought of how well Lucy knew Wyatt. Those two were so simpatico sometimes it was almost ridiculous – in a totally adorable way, of course. "Yeah, he kind of already did," she chuckled before suddenly remembering that, as it turned out, _Wyatt_ had been the one to _walk_.

Dang it, how was she going to explain _that_ to Lucy? How was she supposed to tell her friend that she and Rufus had driven Wyatt off – quite possibly for good – with their shared inability to keep their big mouths shut? Not only would that shatter Lucy's heart, but likely destroy their friendship as well. Jiya simply couldn't bear to consider either possibility. Somehow, she and Rufus _had_ to fix the mess that they'd created. The question was, _how_?

By the looks of it, Wyatt had been utterly _crushed_ to learn that Jiya and Rufus had known about Lucy's pregnancy before he had. Jiya could hardly blame the man. By all rights _(he_ was _that baby's father, for goodness sake)_ Wyatt should have been the _very_ _first_ person that Lucy shared her news with. Moreover, Lucy should have told him weeks _(if not months)_ ago. Knowing Wyatt, though, he'd automatically leapt to all sorts of irrational conclusions about _why_ Lucy hadn't yet told him.

As much as Jiya knew that Wyatt loved and trusted Lucy, the fact was that the poor guy was still wrestling with some _very_ _serious_ demons from his past, not the least of which was guilt over the part that he firmly believed that he'd played in his deceased wife's murder. Consequently, Wyatt was always quick to believe the worst about himself – to internalize every perceived slight, and count it as a veritable black mark against his character. And Lucy not telling him that she was pregnant? Her telling Jiya _(and, by extension, Rufus)_ before she told him? Well, Jiya could easily imagine the self-destructive scenarios that were spinning inside Wyatt's head right now – scenarios that, given the man's propensity towards drinking in times of trouble, were likely to reach epically catastrophic proportions in the days to come. If they were to have any chance of salvaging Wyatt and Lucy's relationship, Jiya realized, she and Rufus needed to shut _that_ crap down _immediately_.

"So, about that dress – any luck?" Lucy asked again, breaking into Jiya's thoughts.

Completely uncertain as to how to respond _(Lucy hardly needed a party dress now that her birthday party had, essentially, been 'cancelled')_ Jiya looked to Rufus for answers.

Meeting Jiya's eyes, Rufus immediately recognized his girlfriend's inner turmoil – an emotional state that perfectly reflected his own. Anger, sadness, remorse…. It was more than obvious that Jiya had been observing Wyatt just as closely as he had. Equally evident was that she'd come to a similar conclusion about the whole screwed-up situation in which they'd inadvertently landed themselves: their 'idiots in love' friends needed help, and _fast_. Damn it, this was so not how he'd envisioned spending his night!

"Divide and conquer?" he proposed a tad resentfully, holding up a solitary fist.

"Divide and conquer," Jiya agreed with a heavy sigh and a quick bump of her own fist to his.

Rufus pressed a swift kiss of encouragement to Jiya's lips. "You take Tweedledum, and I'll take Tweedledumber. Meet you at the limo in, like, 20 minutes?"

Jiya nodded in silent agreement, although 20 minutes hardly seemed long enough to her to both get Lucy dressed _and_ deliver the what-the-heck-were-you-thinking lecture that Jiya felt her friend rightly deserved.

Her doubt must have shown on her face, given Rufus' next words. "Hey, if Lucy and Wyatt aren't on the same page by then, I say we just ditch them both, and have our own little party. I mean, the limo's already paid for, right? No sense in letting it go to waste."

"Well now you've got me thinking that we should just lock them in a room together for the night, and let them fight it out," Jiya teased, wrapping her arms lovingly around Rufus' neck. "How often do we get a night to ourselves? And in a limo, no less?"

"Yeah, but this _is_ kind of our fault, don't you think?" he reasoned. "Well, more _yours_ than mine, really, since _you're_ the one who can't keep a secret to save your life. I didn't even _know_ Lucy was pregnant until _you_ told me."

 _Oops – open mouth, insert foot_ , Rufus immediately realized. When was he ever going to learn? Correctly reading the irritation in his girlfriend's eyes, he quickly disentangled himself from her hold, and took a few steps backwards. "But, um, who's keeping track, right?" He grinned sheepishly.

"Right," Jiya drawled, rolling her eyes at him. With one last half-heated glare in his direction and a shooing wave of her hand, she returned to her original undertaking – finding something suitable for Lucy to wear.

"Just give me five minutes, OK, sweetie?" Jiya called to Lucy, who _(she suddenly remembered)_ was still waiting on her response. "I promise, it will _absolutely_ be worth the wait!" _Heck yeah it would!_ Firmly resolved to fix what should never have been broken, Jiya eagerly dove into the task of finding a dress so freaking spectacular that Wyatt Logan wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hades of keeping his eyes _(let alone his eager hands)_ off of Lucy Preston.

Recognizing that he'd been summarily dismissed, Rufus started after Wyatt. Slightly panicked given the man's tendency to do insanely stupid things when he was upset _('upset' being a massive understatement of how Wyatt must be feeling right now)_ , Rufus raced from the wardrobe bay in search of his friend. Hopefully he could catch up to him before the idiot went and did something that couldn't be taken back.


	3. Chapter 3

"I found it!" Jiya sing-songed, letting herself back into the dressing room.

Tossing the replacement dress in Lucy's direction, Jiya began to pace the limited confines of the small room, trying to gather her thoughts for the difficult conversation that she needed to have with her friend. She and Rufus had really messed things up just now with Wyatt, and she owed Lucy a huge apology for that. On the other hand, Lucy herself was far from blameless in this.

Not only was Lucy's choice to keep the news of her pregnancy from Wyatt extremely hurtful, but – given the team's particular line of work – also potentially dangerous as well. The more Jiya considered that aspect of Lucy's secret-keeping, the more upset with Lucy she became, until she was practically seething with anger.

Slipping the proffered garment over her head, Lucy examined herself in the room's solitary mirror, and cringed. While certainly lovely _(and a much better fit than its predecessor)_ , the two-toned, calf-length gown that Jiya had selected did absolutely _nothing_ to disguise the recent changes to Lucy's figure. In fact, the juxtaposition of the rose-colored, criss-cross-style bodice against the burgundy, empire waistline skirt seemed to intentionally _emphasize_ those parts of her body that Lucy most wanted to hide.

"Hmm…Are you sure that this fabric is a wise choice?" Lucy asked, veiling her _actual_ concerns about the dress so as not to tip Jiya off. "It might be a little hot for dancing in, don't you think?"

"Oh cut the crap already, Lucy!" Jiya blurted, her aggravation with her friend finally boiling over. "You know as well as I do that the only thing 'wrong' with that dress is that it won't help you hide your pregnancy from Wyatt anymore."

Lucy floundered, stunned by Jiya's anger, and her seemingly psychic insight into her inner struggle. "What…how did you…."

"News flash: Wyatt _knows_. And thanks for the heads-up, by the way, that you hadn't freaking _told_ him yet." Jiya snorted mirthlessly. "I mean, it's always been my fondest wish to witness one of my friends' hearts shattering into a thousand pieces, so yay for me, right?"

"He _knows_? You…you _told_ him? After everything I've done to…to…." Lucy faltered, the air in her lungs suddenly far too inadequate. Feeling the all-too-familiar dizziness begin to set in, she sank to the floor, and quickly buried her head in her arms, hoping to stave off what was sure to come next. _Not here, not now…please_ , she silently pleaded with whichever deity might be listening.

"To what? Keep Wyatt from finding out the truth? Yeah, I figured that out already, and so did _he_. The question is _why_ , Lucy? Why would you even _want_ to hide this from him in the first place?" Although it was clear that her friend was extremely unhappy about being confronted about her poor choices, Jiya had no intention of letting up on her until she got some answers.

"Because…." Lucy struggled to push the necessary words from her throat. She wanted to tell Jiya – she _needed_ to tell someone, to free herself from the burden of the terrifying secret that she'd been keeping. But it was too late. Her eyes rolling back into her head, she slumped to her side as the darkness claimed her once again.

"Because?" Jiya demanded heatedly. "Because _what_? Look, I get that all of this must be pretty scary, especially since I'm guessing now that you _didn't_ plan on getting pregnant. But that's all the more reason that you should have _told_ Wyatt, don't you think – so that he could go through it _with_ you? That's his baby, too, that you're carrying, and trust me, he _wants_ to be a part of this. God, Lucy – the look on his face when he found out? That man loves you so dang much – he wants a life with you so _freaking_ badly. I thought you wanted that, too, so why the heck are you shutting him out like this?"

Jiya paused and waited for Lucy to respond, but the ridiculous woman merely curled up into a fetal position on her side _(on the hard cement floor, and in a fancy dress no less),_ doubtless in an attempt to make Jiya feel sorry her. _Seriously?_

It was a pitiful sight to be sure, but Jiya wasn't falling for it. Still, maybe she should try a softer approach. "Lucy, you're my friend, and nothing is going to change that. I just need to know what's going on so that I can help you and Wyatt work this out. Because I want you to be happy – I want _both_ of you to be happy. So talk to me, sweetie – tell me what's going on in that stubborn head of yours, please?"

When Lucy still didn't answer, Jiya began to get concerned. Studying her friend more closely, she realized that the woman's whole body had begun to tremble. Had she really upset Lucy _that_ badly? Feeling extremely guilty, she knelt next to Lucy to give her a comforting hug. The moment that she saw Lucy's face, however, the situation instantly became clear: she hadn't been ignoring Jiya, _or_ attempting to play on her sympathies – she was unconscious and convulsing.

"Oh my god!" Trying not to panic, Jiya scrambled to her feet and yanked open the changing room door. "Somebody get a medic! We need a medic in here right now!" she hollered at the top of her lungs, certain that at least one of her coworkers would hear and respond.

"I'm on it!" came a gruff reply from the other side of the changing bay, followed by the sound of hurried footfalls against the cement floor.

Relieved to know that help was on the way, Jiya propped the door open, and then dashed back to Lucy's side. Stroking her friend's hair away from her face, she couldn't help but notice how pale and hollow-cheeked Lucy looked. And those deep, dark circles under her eyes – why hadn't she noticed those before? Given the state that her friend was currently in, Jiya began to suspect that Lucy had been hiding something much more serious than just her pregnancy.

Before Jiya could really consider what that 'something' might be, the medical team arrived. Not wanting to get in their way, she stepped out of the room. Through the still open doorway, she watched in trepidation for several long minutes as they worked on her unconscious friend.

Ultimately deciding to transport Lucy to the nearest hospital, the medical team lifted Lucy carefully onto a gurney. _Please let her and the baby be OK_ , Jiya prayed desperately and repeatedly as she trailed them through the halls of Mason Industries and out into the parking lot where an ambulance was already waiting to take them away.

"Are you riding along?" one of the medics asked, pausing to give Jiya the opportunity to accompany her friend.

"No, I…I need to track down her…her boyfriend first," Jiya replied somewhat distractedly, the thought only having just occurred to her that she needed to tell Wyatt what was going on. Oh god, the poor guy was already such an emotional wreck at the moment – what was this terrible turn of events going to do to him?

The medic nodded at her in acknowledgement, and then quickly clambered inside the vehicle, sealing the rear double doors behind him.

Though she knew that she needed to get moving – to find Wyatt and Rufus, and inform Agent Christopher and Mason of what had happened to Lucy – Jiya could only stand and stare as, lights flashing and sirens blaring, the ambulance carrying two of the most precious people to her in the entire world sped away into the night.

* * *

Having broken every speed limit along the way in his desperation to get home, Wyatt finally pulled into his designated parking space at his apartment complex. Swiping the tears from his eyes, he climbed from the jeep, switching off the headlights and locking the door behind him. He ascended the stairs to his fourth-floor apartment two at a time, eager to begin the process of drinking himself into oblivion. His life had once again gone to complete shit, and he needed to _forget_ , if only for a few blissful hours.

"Wyatt…hold…up!" he suddenly heard from behind him. He paused mid-step, instantly recognizing the strained voice of his best friend and teammate. What the hell was Rufus doing here? Had he followed him home?

Huffing and puffing from the exertion of racing after the Delta Force-trained soldier, Rufus drew to a stop a few stairs below Wyatt. He raised one hand in a silent bid for his speedy friend to wait as he attempted to catch his breath.

"What do you _want_ , Rufus?" Wyatt barked, not at all in the right mental space for company at the moment. He _seriously_ needed to be alone, preferably for _at least_ a week, if not for the rest of his godforsaken life.

"Lucy…," Rufus wheezed, bending over at the waist in hopes of alleviating the tremendous pressure on his lungs. Geez, he was out of shape. He really needed to start running again or something.

"Lucy's none of my business anymore, is she? You of all people should know that," Wyatt replied brokenly. Pointedly ignoring the fresh wave of tears flowing over his face, he turned his back on the winded man, and sped up the final flight of stairs to his apartment.

He had just cracked the seal on his favorite bargain-basement whisky when the frantic pounding on his apartment door began. _God damn it –_ couldn't Rufus take a freaking _hint_? "Go. The fuck. Away!" he hollered, lifting the bottle to his lips, and partaking greedily of the warm, soothing liquid.

"I _can't_ , Wyatt," Rufus argued fiercely through the wooden barrier. "Lucy needs you right now. Can…can you just let me in? Please? We seriously need to talk, man, and I'm pretty sure you don't want or need your neighbors hearing all this."

Contemplating whether or not to comply with his friend's request _(Lucy definitely didn't need him…now or ever…she'd made that abundantly clear, hadn't she?)_ Wyatt took another long, comforting swig from the bottle, and then another.

"Dude, if you don't let me in _right now_ , I'm going to kick this door down. And then I'm going to kick your self-centered _ass_!" Rufus bellowed, pummeling the door for all that he was worth. "Don't think that I _won't_ , Wyatt Logan! Lucy seriously _needs_ you right now, goddamn it!"

 _Yeah right_ , Wyatt thought, chuckling to himself and tipping the bottle once again to his lips. His nerdy, bleeding-heart, utterly pacifistic friend could barely bring himself to swat a _fly_ without serious encouragement, let alone voluntarily kick someone's ass.

Finally beginning to feel the buzz of the alcohol pumping through his system, Wyatt kicked off his boots, and collapsed onto his living room sofa. It might not be the most comfortable spot in his apartment to pass out _(as he knew from experience that he eventually would)_ , but at least – unlike his _bed_ – it didn't hold any particularly poignant memories of time spent with Lucy.

Lucy…beautiful, amazing, far-too-freaking-good-to-be-true Lucy. Wyatt rolled to his side and tried without success to stifle the mind-warping combination of searing pain and soul-deep desire that flooded his brain at the recollection of the first and only night that he'd been blessed to pass holding her in his arms without barriers or restraint – worshipping her body and everything that it enshrined with his.

They'd just returned from Arkansas, from that near-disastrous mission to steal a freaking _key_ , of all things, from the notorious Bonnie and Clyde before Flynn could get his greedy hands on it. In the course of the mission, he and Lucy had been forced to emulate Bonnie and Clyde, assuming the role of a similarly 'passionately in love' criminal couple. In order to prove the veracity of their relationship to the infinitely skeptical Clyde Barrow, Wyatt had, at one point, spontaneously reached for Lucy, pulling her into a kiss that had not only alleviated the outlaw's doubts, but Wyatt's as well. No lightning bolt from the heavens had ever been so electrifying as the feel of Lucy Preston's mouth moving against his.

Yet idiot that he was, when all was said and done, Wyatt had tried to deny it – apologizing to Lucy, and dismissing the most intense moment of his life to date as 'just playing a role'. Thankfully, Lucy had seen right through him. Daring him to _prove_ that it had all been an act, she'd pressed her lips – and every sweet curve of her body – to his. And it had all unraveled from there – every self-serving lie that he'd told himself from the moment that he'd first laid eyes on her, every bit of his carefully crafted self-control, everything that he'd ever believed about destiny and love.

In the course of that one night, Lucy had repeatedly taken him to heights of ecstasy that he'd never even dreamed possible. More, she'd filled every crack in his fractured heart with her loving tenderness and compassion, opening his mind to 'possibilities' that he'd previously thought dead and buried right alongside his murdered wife. For the first time in years, he'd truly felt alive…he'd felt _whole_.

God, how could he have been so foolish as to believe that Lucy had actually _meant_ it – any of it? No longer able to hold his heartache at bay, and having no reason whatsoever anymore to do so, Wyatt buried his face in the sofa cushions, and sobbed.

The muffled yet unmistakable sound of his friend's weeping drifted through the closed door, reminding Rufus again just how badly he and Jiya had screwed up. But none of that mattered right now. Looking both ways to verify that the hallway was clear _(the last thing he needed right now was somebody calling the cops)_ , Rufus backed up a few steps and ran at the door, kicking it down exactly as he'd threatened to do.

The sound of his door crashing instantly had Wyatt on his feet, gun drawn and pointed at the intruder.

"Don't shoot! It's just me!" Rufus held up his hands in surrender, just to be safe.

"Rufus, what the _hell_? If I wanted you to come in, I would have _opened_ the goddamned door!" Wyatt snarled, and tucked his gun back into its holster.

Once again turning his back on his friend, Wyatt strode down the hallway to his bedroom, and slammed the door behind him. And now he was in the one place in his apartment where he really did _not_ want to be right now. Damn it, why wouldn't Rufus just go away and leave him be? He didn't want or need to hear any of his friend's lectures tonight. He just wanted to nurse his wounds in his own way _and_ in private – was that really so much to ask?

Rufus didn't hesitate to follow Wyatt. His legs might be sore for it tomorrow, but if he had to kick down another door to get the man to listen to him, then he would. Thankfully, it didn't come to that, since Wyatt had left the bedroom door unlocked. "OK, listen up, asshole. Your girlfriend is…."

"She's _not_ my girlfriend," Wyatt snapped. "She doesn't want me, Rufus, and I sure as hell don't need _you_ here rubbing that fact in my face!"

"Seriously, Wyatt, if you don't shut the fuck up right now and listen, I _will_ kick your ass – don't think for a second that I won't!" Rufus growled back at him, his bank of patience for Wyatt now completely bankrupt. Something in the tone of his voice or the fierce expression in his eyes must have finally gotten through to Wyatt, though, because the man at least shut up.

Rufus rubbed the back of his neck in agitation, and tried to calm down a bit before speaking again. "Look, Jiya sent me here to tell you that Lucy's in the _hospital_ ," he resumed in a gentler tone. He watched as the expression on Wyatt's face transformed from petulance to alarm. Good – dude was actually _listening_ then, too. Rufus held up a hand to stave off the questions already forming on his friend's lips. "She – Lucy – apparently collapsed in some sort of seizure at Mason Industries, and they had to haul her off in an ambulance. The doctors managed to stop the convulsions, and are running all sorts of tests, but they haven't been able to wake her up."

He paused for a moment, giving Wyatt the chance to speak. But Wyatt just sat there looking stunned for the second time in as many hours. "So yeah, we just thought you should know. What you do about it is up to you, but if it were me, I'd be hauling my ass down there as fast as possible to be with the woman I loved."

When his friend still didn't respond, Rufus exited the bedroom, and made his way back out of the apartment through the the now-demolished front door. He'd call someone tomorrow to replace what he'd ruined, but right now, Jiya was waiting for him at the hospital, and he needed to be there to support both her and Lucy.

Rufus had just pushed the 'close door' button in the apartment complex's elevator _(he'd had enough of a workout chasing Wyatt up the stairs already)_ when Wyatt dashed into the mobile compartment and tossed him a set of keys. Rufus quirked an eyebrow at the other man questioningly.

"You're driving, but we're taking my jeep," Wyatt explained gruffly as the elevator began its descent. "It's faster than that piece of crap you call a car."

Rufus nodded in silent agreement. Though slightly offended by Wyatt's opinion of his choice in vehicles _(he'd paid good money for that so-called 'piece of crap', thank you very much)_ , he was too relieved by his friend's decision to come along to the hospital to bother to call him on it.

"Hey Rufus?" Wyatt asked hesitantly, terrified of what his friend's answer might be. "Is she…do the doctors think that…. Are Lucy and the baby going to be OK?"

Rufus sighed heavily, wishing like hell that he could tell Wyatt with absolute certainty what he knew the man wanted to hear. The poor guy had already lost one woman that he'd loved, and that had nearly destroyed him. Rufus didn't even want to think about what would happen if Wyatt's tragic history repeated itself, and he lost Lucy and the child that she was carrying, too. "They don't know yet. They don't know what's wrong with her exactly. But Lucy's a fighter, and with the two of you as its parents, I'm 1000% certain that your kid is, too. So let's just focus on that for right now, alright?"

"Yeah," Wyatt whispered hoarsely. Rufus' words might not have been exactly the reassurance that he was hoping for, but that last bit, at least, was definitely something he could cling to. And he would. "Hey Rufus?" he called to his friend again as the elevator doors slid open and Rufus strode out ahead of him.

"Yeah, buddy?" Rufus replied, continuing towards Wyatt's jeep.

"Thanks for kicking down my door. You're a real badass when you want to be."

Rufus grinned. Yeah, he _was_ , wasn't he? "You're welcome, man. That's what friends are for, right?"

 **A/N: First, thanks as always for your generous follows/favs/reviews and thought-provoking questions. Second, I've had several questions specifically about how the Wyatt in this story _(who obviously loves Lucy and only Lucy)_ could possibly be the same supposedly Jessica-obsessed one to whom Lucy was originally married before the timeline shift in 'Homecoming'. Answer: there are definite hints throughout 'Homecoming' that Lucy's view of things may be 'off' for some reason. Beyond that, please keep reading - it will become clear in time. ;-)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Fair warning - this chapter is a real doozy in terms of angst! I promise, though - there _is_ a point to it. Thanks again for all of the awesome feedback - knowing that y'all are actually reading and enjoying this helps keep me writing! :-) **

Between the five-car pileup on the freeway that had forced them to reroute through heavy street traffic, and the _two_ tickets that Rufus had gotten along the way for running red lights _(Wyatt was never letting his friend drive his jeep again),_ it took Wyatt and Rufus far longer to reach the hospital than expected. Unfortunately, while the extended drive gave Wyatt the necessary time to sober up, it also gave him plenty of time to worry about Lucy.

That Lucy had collapsed _at all_ seriously concerned Wyatt, especially in light of her pregnancy. But it was her continued state of unconsciousness that _truly_ terrified him. What if, as a result of the convulsions, she'd suffered some sort of brain damage? What if she woke up with serious memory loss, or even an entirely different personality? What if she never woke up at all?

Though Wyatt wanted to – tried _hard_ to – cling to Rufus' wise advice that he focus on the fact that Lucy was 'a fighter', he couldn't seem to stop imagining terrible outcomes. As such, by the time that he and Rufus finally strode into the Emergency Room, his nerves were well beyond frayed. Was it any wonder then that he lost his temper when the Emergency Room attendant _(who seemed far more concerned with the game that she was playing on her cellphone than actually helping anyone)_ informed him that he couldn't see Lucy, for no other reason than that Jiya was already with her? When she wouldn't even bother to notify Lucy's caretakers that he'd arrived, let alone arrange for Jiya to trade places with him?

"Listen you idiot, she's my _wife_!" Wyatt bellowed at the attendant, the often used lie that he'd hoped _(until a few hours ago, at least)_ to someday make a reality automatically rolling off of his tongue. "My very _pregnant_ , seriously _ill_ wife! And there's no way in _hell_ that I'm just going to sit around _out here_ when my whole freaking _world_ is falling apart right now _back there_!"

Wyatt smacked the countertop angrily, before finally reaching over it and snatching the cellphone none too gently from the attendant's hands. "So how about you do your _job_ , and actually _help_ me, before I report you to Administration. I'm sure they'll be _thrilled_ to learn about how you decided your little game of…." He glanced down at the woman's cellphone screen. "… _Candy Crush_ was more important than their patient's needs!"

"Wyatt, man, you _seriously_ need to calm down right now, or you're going to get us kicked out of here," Rufus hissed, tugging at his irate friend's arm.

"I'd like to see them try," Wyatt snarled. Shaking off Rufus' hold, he glowered at the now cowering attendant who'd had the nerve to try to block him from getting to the woman he loved just when she needed him most.

"Um, s-s-sorry, sir. I didn't, uh, realize," the flabbergasted attendant stammered in apology. "Let me just…." She fumbled for her desk phone to ring the Emergency Room nurse's station.

Seriously frustrated by the seemingly endless string of delays, Wyatt paced back and forth in front of the visitor check-in desk while he awaited the verdict. If it came to it, he'd call Agent Christopher, and have her pull rank. One way or another, though, he was getting in to see Lucy _now_.

"It seems that your wife has, uh, been moved to the ICU," the attendant abashedly informed Wyatt a few minutes later, pointedly avoiding eye contact with him. "They've, um, apparently been expecting you. Both of you."

Tossing the woman's cellphone back across the counter to her, Wyatt loped off in the direction that she'd indicated, motioning for Rufus to follow.

Less than a minute later, Wyatt rounded into the Intensive Care Unit at full speed. He barely managed to stop himself in time to avoid barreling into an older, silver-haired man who was headed in the opposite direction.

"Slow down, son! Where's the fire?" the man chided gruffly, instinctively reaching out to grip Wyatt's arms in order to forestall the potential collision.

"Sorry. My…my Lucy…she's…they told me she was here." Wyatt explained hurriedly. He shrugged off the guy's hands, and then dodged to one side to go around him.

"Hold on," the other man insisted, quickly moving to block Wyatt's path. "You must be Wyatt Logan, then. Your friend over there…." He hitched a thumb over his shoulder, directing Wyatt's attention to Jiya, who was currently seated on a chair outside one of the patient rooms _(presumably Lucy's),_ her face buried in her hands. "…Said you'd come barreling in here any minute now. Didn't realize she meant it quite so literally, though," he chuckled.

Frightened by the fact that Jiya appeared to be crying _(her shoulders were trembling in an all-too-familiar way)_ , and what that might mean about Lucy, Wyatt barely registered that the man was speaking to him. Pushing past him, Wyatt started towards his friend.

Once again, however, the older man halted Wyatt's progress. Slinging an arm around Wyatt's shoulders, he steered him towards the waiting area. "Now I know you must be anxious to see your Lucy, but how about you and I have a little chat first, OK?"

Having trailed Wyatt to the ICU at a much more sedate pace, Rufus entered the room just in time to see his friend twisting out of the stranger's hold, and slamming the man forcefully against the nearest wall.

"What the _hell_ , Wyatt?" Rufus rushed to break up the apparent fight. Clearly, he'd been wrong in thinking that he could leave his hot-headed friend alone for even a minute right now.

"Wyatt, let the doctor _go_!" Jiya shrieked, the ruckus finally drawing her attention. She sped to Rufus' side, and watched as her boyfriend yanked insistently on Wyatt's arms until he finally released the startled, struggling man.

"Dang it, Wyatt! I know you're really upset right now, but you need to pull yourself together!" Jiya admonished, glaring censoriously at him. She waited until Wyatt's eyes met hers, and then made the necessary introductions. "This is Dr. Ramsey," she huffed, gesturing towards the man that Wyatt had only seconds ago pinned against the wall. "He's the specialist in charge of Lucy's case, so we kind of need him _conscious_ right now, OK?"

Cringing in embarrassment, Wyatt promptly took several steps backwards to give the man in question the necessary space to recover himself. "Sorry about that, sir," he apologized sincerely, lowering his gaze penitantly to the floor. "I was way out of line. It's just…the whole universe seems determined to keep me away from Lucy right now. That's no excuse, though, for taking it out on you."

"No worries, son," Dr. Ramsey reassured him, rubbing at the back of his now aching head. "It's partly my fault for not introducing myself properly in the first place, I suppose. Besides, I'd probably have done the same if the shoe were on the other foot."

The good-natured physician took a moment to straighten and re-tuck his shirt, and then waved Wyatt, Rufus, and Jiya again towards the waiting area. "Now take a seat, would you please, so we can talk about Lucy?"

"How is she, doc? I mean, I know she's in bad shape right now, but she's going to be OK, right?" Wyatt asked uneasily, declining the doctor's invitation to sit. A soldier through and through, he felt certain that he'd handle whatever news the man intended to share with him better while standing.

Having already spoken with the doctor about Lucy's situation, however _(and immediately shared what she'd learned with Rufus)_ , Jiya knew better. "Come on, Wyatt," she urged gently, seating herself and then patting the empty chair next to her. "You're going to…well, it will just be a lot easier on all of us if you're sitting down."

Well _that_ didn't sound ominous at all, Wyatt mused. Eyeing both Jiya _(whose eyes were inarguably red-rimmed from crying)_ and Lucy's physician apprehensively, Wyatt finally did as he'd been asked to do.

Knowing from Jiya what was coming, and wanting to be of the greatest possible support to his friend, Rufus seated himself on the opposite side of Wyatt from Jiya, and anxiously waited for the doctor to answer Wyatt's questions.

"So how much exactly has Lucy told you about her condition, son?" Dr. Ramsey asked Wyatt after a short pause.

"Condition? Oh, you mean her pregnancy? Um, not…not a lot." More like zero, zip, zilch, but Wyatt didn't think that the doctor needed to know the exact details. "Why – did what happened tonight have something to do with that?" Though he was certainly no expert on pregnancy, Wyatt had never once heard of convulsions and extended periods of unconsciousness being typical side-effects of that.

"No, although it does have a significant bearing on it, I'm afraid." Dr. Ramsey sighed heavily, realizing that he was now going to have to be the bearer of more than one piece of bad news. As much as he loved his job, he thoroughly _detested_ this particular aspect of it.

"So then what – there's something _else_ going on with Lucy? Something that she already knew about?" Wyatt's eyes bounced questioningly between Rufus and Jiya, both of whom lowered their own eyes guiltily to the floor.

Jesus…exactly how many secrets had Lucy been keeping from him, Wyatt wondered. More importantly, _why_ had she been keeping them? Even if Lucy didn't want a _romantic_ relationship with him, they _were_ still friends, weren't they?

Wyatt cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. His every instinct had been screaming at him for weeks that something was seriously off with Lucy, hadn't it? So why hadn't he pushed her harder for answers? Why had he allowed his fear of ruining their burgeoning intimacy to interfere with simply being the _friend_ that she needed?

Correctly sensing that Wyatt was, once again, sinking into self-blame, Jiya reached over and clasped one of his hands in hers. The fact that he didn't automatically pull away – as Wyatt was wont to do when anyone other than Lucy touched him – confirmed just how utterly lost and low the poor guy must be feeling right now. Recognizing that things were about to get much, _much_ worse for him, however, Jiya clasped Wyatt's hand even tighter.

"Forgive me for being so blunt, Mr. Logan, but there's just no easy way to tell you this." Trying to be as compassionate as possible, Dr. Ramsey leaned forward in his chair, and grasped Wyatt's remaining free hand with both of his own. "Lucy has a brain tumor – a malignant one. Based on what her primary care physician told me, Lucy has known about it for a few months now. Apparently Dr. Harrington spotted some irregularities in Lucy's blood work when he diagnosed her pregnancy, and after running a slew of additional tests, the tumor was discovered."

A brain tumor? A _malignant_ brain tumor? 'Malignant'…Wyatt searched his stress-addled brain for the meaning of that particular word, his heart nearly stopping when he finally stumbled upon it. "Cancer?" he gasped, suddenly incapable of drawing a full breath.

No, that couldn't possibly be what Dr. Ramsey had meant, could it? Wyatt must have simply misheard, or…or _misunderstood_. Instantly recalling, however, the last time _(just a few hours ago, in fact)_ that he'd been convinced of the very same thing, Wyatt was forced to admit to himself that he'd at least _heard_ correctly. While his brain might not always function as well as he wished in times of turmoil like this one, his hearing…. Well, his hearing had never failed him, had it?

"You're saying that Lucy…." Wyatt swallowed repeatedly, unable to push the rest of the words past the solid lump of terror and anguish suddenly obstructing his throat.

"Has cancer, yes. I'm very sorry, Mr. Logan," Dr. Ramsey solemnly confirmed. "Unfortunately, though, there's more."

The doctor looked to Jiya, who nodded at him encouragingly. However harsh the news might be, Wyatt deserved nothing less than to know the full truth about what was going on with his girlfriend. "The tumor is entangled in a major blood vessel, which means that surgical removal isn't an option. Typically our next steps would be targeted chemotherapy or, at the very least, radiotherapy. Because of her pregnancy, however, Lucy has opted to forego all further treatment."

"Forego all further treatment? What are you talking about? What do you mean?" Again, Wyatt's brain simply refused to process what Dr. Ramsey was saying to him.

"It means that Lucy won't let the doctors do anything to try to make her better, because it might hurt the baby," Rufus softly explained, his heart breaking into a thousand pieces for _both_ of his friends.

"But…but..." Wyatt flung himself from his chair, and resumed his earlier pacing, every last nerve in his body on the verge of short-circuiting in heated protest of what Rufus and Lucy's physician had just revealed. If the tumor couldn't be removed, and Lucy refused to let the doctors do anything else, then that meant that…. _Oh god._ "Lucy's going to…she's choosing to…." Wyatt rasped, the tears that he'd thought that he'd left behind in his apartment once again flooding his eyes. He didn't even want to _think_ that word, let alone say it out loud.

"If she continues to refuse treatment, Lucy will die," Dr. Ramsey confirmed, knowing from years of experience that it never did anyone any good for him to sugarcoat his words.

No. Just…no. _No, no, no, no, no!_ That _couldn't_ be right, Wyatt's brain insisted. It just _couldn't_. He'd already lost one woman that he'd loved – he couldn't lose Lucy, too. It was one thing for her to simply not want to be with him. However much the idea of that hurt, Wyatt would at least be able to _live_ with it. But this – Lucy dying…Lucy _choosing_ to die – in order to protect the life of a child that, had he not been so freaking reckless, would never have been conceived in the first place? _That_ Wyatt most definitely could _not_ live with.

For the first time, Wyatt sincerely regretted having ever laid eyes on Lucy Preston. If he'd never met her, then he'd no doubt still be firmly ensconced in grief and self-loathing over the death of his wife – a miserable existence, to be sure, but a far safer one for everyone involved, particularly Lucy. If he'd never met Lucy, then he would never have come anywhere close to developing feelings for another woman besides Jessica. He'd never have kissed Lucy in some lame-ass attempt to prove their so-called 'love' to two of the world's most notorious criminals – never have felt the one-and-only-ever 'lightning bolt from the heavens' of his entire life. He'd never have allowed Lucy to entice him with the prospect of 'possibilities', or to goad him into admitting that the kiss that they'd shared in Arkansas was anything more than 'just playing a role'. And he most certainly would never have endangered her very _life_ by repeatedly and impetuously proving her right.

This was entirely his fault, damn it. From the moment that he'd accepted this assignment with Mason Industries, Wyatt had had one main job to do: _protecting_ Lucy Preston. But he'd foolishly allowed his heart to become involved. He'd allowed himself to care about Lucy – to _fall in love_ with Lucy. And in doing so, he'd not only failed at his assignment, but personally failed Lucy as well, hadn't he? In the most spectacular way possible.

"So what's the prognosis, then?" Rufus blurted, sparing Wyatt the additional pain of having to ask. "Are we talking months, or years, or…?"

"Quite frankly, given the aggressive nature of this particular type of tumor, Lucy's already living on borrowed time," Dr. Ramsey replied candidly. "Without treatment, I'm afraid she only has another couple of months at best."

"And the baby?" Jiya prompted. Although she'd spoken with Dr. Ramsey at length before Wyatt and Rufus' arrival, it hadn't occurred to her then to ask about the child that her friend was carrying.

"At this time the baby is perfectly fine. Obviously, though, it's too early for it to survive outside the womb," the doctor explained somewhat sadly. "If Lucy can hold on for another four weeks, then there's at least a _chance_ that the child will make it, although likely not without some permanent health issues. Naturally, the odds of the child surviving increase with every additional week of gestation."

"So what are we supposed to do then? Just…just wait around for Lucy to…to _die_?" Wyatt demanded, his voice cracking on the last word.

"Not necessarily." Dr. Ramsey shook his head, recognizing that – quite understandably – Wyatt wasn't thinking logically at the moment. "Treatment is _very much_ still an option, assuming that Lucy consents to it. Unfortunately, that _will_ put your child's health at risk, Mr. Logan, which, as I'm given to understand, is why Lucy refused treatment in the first place. Now that she's past the first trimester, however, the risks would be significantly reduced. The best option, of course – from a medical standpoint – would be to simply terminate the pregnancy. That would allow us to focus solely on Lucy, and what _her_ body needs to heal. Again, though, she made it clear from the beginning that that particular course of action was out of the question."

"So what you're saying, then," Jiya ventured, glancing pointedly at Wyatt, and hoping that her friend _truly_ heard what _she_ was saying, "Is that – in order for Lucy to survive – we need to convince her to go through with the treatment? Even though it could potentially harm the baby?"

"Exactly." Dr. Ramsey nodded in full agreement. "While I know that that baby is currently Lucy's primary concern, the simple fact is that if she doesn't get treatment _immediately_ , neither she nor the child will survive."

The room fell silent as Wyatt, Rufus, and Jiya attempted to assimilate the doctor's final statement.

"Where is she?" Wyatt finally asked after several long moments. He needed to see Lucy now – to _be_ with her now – even if, given her continued state of unconsciousness, she wasn't capable of recognizing his presence. Now that he understood the _real_ reason behind her puzzling behavior of the past few weeks – the _real_ reason that she'd hidden her pregnancy from him – he wanted nothing more than to wrap her securely in his arms, and to never, _ever_ let her go. Yet, in light of Dr. Ramsey's revelations, he knew that that wasn't enough. Somehow, he had to convince Lucy to choose to _live_ – for him, for their child, and, above all, for _herself_.


	5. Chapter 5

_(9 Days Later)_

Yawning groggily, Lucy reached to brush away the insect that was persistently tickling her ear. She immediately yanked her hand back as she realized her mistake. Unless bugs had suddenly taken to sporting stubbly beards, it was no _insect_ whose cheek was currently pressed against the side of her head _._

Fully alert now, she lay as still as possible so as not to wake the man that she now realized was spooning her from behind. She'd been avoiding him for weeks – outright _lying_ to him for weeks – in order to protect her secrets, yet somehow she'd ended up in bed with him. There was no way that this could _possibly_ end well now. "Way to go, Preston. Could you _be_ a bigger idiot?" she muttered to herself.

Though sorely tempted to just try to sneak out before he woke up, Lucy couldn't bring herself to do so. He deserved better than that. Besides, she'd spent _enough_ time playing the coward already. Ready or not, she needed to 'woman up', tell him what she should have months ago, and pray like crazy that he didn't react _too_ terribly. "Right – like there's any chance of _that_ happening," she sighed heavily, resigning herself to what would doubtless turn out to be a nasty argument. Mentally rehearsing the words that needed said _(regardless of how well he chose to receive them)_ , Lucy began to drift again towards sleep.

The sound of someone speaking stirred Wyatt from his nap. Blinking a few times to clear his sleep-blurred vision, he surveyed the room. He could have sworn that he'd heard a voice, but there was no one there. Figuring that it must just have been someone passing by outside of Lucy's hospital room – a particularly loud nurse or visitor perhaps – he let his overly fatigued eyes fall closed again.

After over a week of doing very little but pacing and snoozing in an uncomfortable chair beside Lucy's bed _(he couldn't bear the thought of not being there when she woke up, and had only taken the briefest of breaks each day to shower and change clothes)_ , Wyatt had finally given in to the doctor's suggestion that he simply _join_ Lucy in said bed and try to get some solid rest for a change.

It had turned out to be the perfect solution, and one that Wyatt wished now that he'd surrendered to days ago. Finally being able to hold Lucy in his arms – to feel her heart beating, the steady rise and fall of her breathing, and the occasional light fluttering of their as yet unborn child – had _instantly_ turned down the volume on the terror that had been screaming relentlessly inside his head since the night that he'd learned of her illness. Now he just needed her to wake up so that they could get to work on getting her well, and silence that terror _for good_.

Trying not to let his mind wander to the grim possibility that that might never happen _(she'd been asleep for so long now, and with each passing day, the chances of her ever waking up again grew slimmer)_ , Wyatt tightened his hold on Lucy, and nuzzled her ear. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty," he whispered to her, just as he had several times a day every one of the nine days that she'd been asleep so far. "Time to wake up now. Please?"

Jolted out of her near slumberous daze by the deep rumble of her bed partner's voice in her ear, Lucy instinctively tried to leap from the bed, only to slam belly-first into the metal railing surrounding it. "What the _…_?" Her eyes bounced wildly between the constraining rails and the mound that was now her stomach.

Recoiling in panicked bewilderment, Lucy fell right back against the man from whom she'd been trying to escape, startling herself all over again. With a very undignified squeal, she scrambled to her knees and scurried towards the foot of the bed.

Too stunned at first by the fact that Lucy was awake to actually speak or move, Wyatt watched in wide-eyed astonishment as she bounced around the bed like a human pinball. It was only when her IV stand – which she was unwittingly dragging along with her – crashed against the railing that his brain finally kicked in again. "Lucy, stop! You're going to hurt yourself!" Lurching forward, he snagged her firmly by the hips, and yanked her back towards him.

"Let me go!" she shrieked. Thrashing against him, she accidentally dislodged one of the many monitors attached to her body, causing a shrill alarm to sound from the corresponding machine. The unexpected clamor only served to agitate her further.

Wyatt simultaneously tried to still Lucy and reach around her to switch off the blaring alarm. Before he could do either, however, a nurse sprinted into the room, frantically hollering instructions over her shoulder to somebody out in the hallway. Recognizing Lucy's escalating confusion and fear, Wyatt pleaded with the nurse to turn off the offending machine and cease her unnecessary yelling immediately.

"Hey, it's OK, Babydoll," he murmured to Lucy softly, attempting to soothe her. He relaxed his hold on her, and turned her around in his arms so that she could see his face _(and so that he could finally gaze into those wide-awake, whisky-colored eyes of hers that he'd missed so desperately)_. "It's just me, see?" he assured her. Carding his fingers gently through her tangled curls, he pressed a lingering, grateful kiss to her forehead, followed by several quick kisses to her cheeks, chin, and the tip of her nose. "I've got you. You're OK," he breathed in relief.

Lucy froze, and stared at him for several long moments with an expression that Wyatt couldn't quite interpret.

"Sorry about all the ruckus," the nurse apologized as she finally managed to disable Lucy's heart monitor. "The alarms on these machines are a real pain in the rear sometimes, I know, but we have to take them seriously, just in case. Better safe than sorry, right?" she chuckled half-heartedly, trying to lighten the mood in the room a bit.

The unexpected sound of the nurse's laughter drew Lucy's attention away from Wyatt. As she took in her entire surroundings for the first time, the puzzle pieces finally started to fall into place. Noting the series of wires and tubes leading away from the various machines at the bedside, she traced their path with her eyes to where they ultimately connected to her own body. "Wyatt?" she squeaked, panic flaring again in her chest. "Why am I in the _hospital_?" She turned back towards him, searching his face anxiously for answers.

"You had a seizure," he explained as calmly as possible, choosing to spare her the finer details, including the fact that she'd been unconscious for over a week. The last thing that Wyatt wanted to do right now was to compound Lucy's obvious distress. He continued to run his hands slowly through her hair, drawing as much comfort from the simple act as he hoped that she was. "You passed out at work, but thankfully Jiya was with you, and got you here pretty fast. We've all just been waiting for you to wake up."

Though she tried to recall the incident in question, Lucy's mind drew a complete blank. "A seizure? Like an _epileptic_ seizure?" To the best of her knowledge, she'd never had one of those in her entire life. So why would she suddenly have one now? "Do the doctors know what caused it?"

"They're pretty much par for the course with aggressive brain tumors like yours, unfortunately," the nurse chimed in as she scribbled a few notes on Lucy's patient chart. "Honestly, I'm surprised that your oncologist didn't prescribe you anti-seizure meds months ago."

As focused as he was on Lucy, Wyatt noticed straightaway the widening of her eyes, and the way that the color seemed to rapidly leech from her face. Something about what the nurse had just said had _clearly_ upset her, but which part? "Luce? What is it?" He instinctively tightened his hold on her as he waited for her to respond.

Her mind racing at the speed of sound, however, Lucy could barely form a coherent _thought_ , let alone the words to answer him.

"Anyway, Dr. Ramsey started you on them as soon as we got you stable, and he'll want you to stay on them, at least until your baby's born," the nurse continued confidently. "There _are_ some possible side effects that he'll want to go over with you, but trust me, honey – the meds are a _lot_ safer for you and your little one than having another big seizure like this one."

The terror that flared in Lucy's eyes at the mention of the baby was absolutely unmistakable. Irritated with himself for being so slow to realize the likely source of her fear, Wyatt quickly attempted to reassure her.

"Lucy, I'm not upset with you, OK – honestly I'm _not_." Conscious of the nurse's continued presence, he spoke just loud enough for Lucy to hear him. "I admit I was hurt at first that you didn't tell me, but I get it now. With cancer in the mix…yeah, I probably would have pushed you to make a different choice," he conceded regretfully. "But only because this…" He smoothed a hand lovingly over the place where their child currently rested inside her body to emphasize his words. "…Makes it that much harder for you to get well. And you have to _do_ that, Lucy. You can't keep prioritizing the baby's health over yours, or else…well, there's just no other option, alright?"

For some unknown reason Lucy didn't seem _at_ _all_ reassured by his words. If anything, she appeared to be even _more_ frightened than before. "Talk to me," Wyatt urged, leaning his forehead against hers. "It's the only way to get over the hump, remember?"

Lucy's jaw worked up and down as she tried to put her thoughts into words, but no words actually came out. When her breathing suddenly became erratic, and her whole body started to tremble, Wyatt began to fear the worst. Was this the start of another seizure already? But she'd only just awoken from the last one!

Not wanting to risk scaring Lucy even more by asking his question out loud, yet knowing that something _definitely_ wasn't right with her, Wyatt sought the nurse's attention. He tilted his head pointedly towards the wheezing, shivering woman in his arms, silently begging the nurse to do something to help.

"Are you alright, Ms. Preston?" The nurse hurried to Lucy's side, giving her a quick visual once-over, and taking her wrist in hand to check her pulse. "Do you feel faint? Would you like to lie back down?"

Lucy continued to gasp for breath, but fervently shook her head 'no'. Turning abruptly away from the nurse, she buried her face in Wyatt's chest, flung her arms around his waist, and then proceeded to sob as if she'd just lost everything in the world that she'd ever held dear.

Completely baffled, Wyatt looked to the nurse for an explanation.

"Waking up is always a little hard after such a long sleep," she advised. "Don't worry – Ms. Preston probably just needs a little time to process all this. Why don't I give you two a few minutes alone, and see if I can't round up Dr. Ramsey in the meantime, OK? He'll definitely want to talk to her now that she's awake, and probably run a fresh batch of tests, too."

Wyatt nodded appreciatively at the nurse as she slipped from the room. Uncertain, however, as to how to help Lucy, he simply held her as tightly as possible, and rocked her gently until her tears and sniffles and hiccups finally subsided.

"Wyatt?" Lucy asked timidly some minutes later, turning her head to the side so that he could hear her. "Is it true what that nurse said?"

"Hmm?" he murmured, tucking his chin against the top of her head, and smoothing his hands up and down her back. "Which part?"

"All of it." She pulled away from him then, and scooted down along the bed, needing a certain amount of physical distance from him in order to say what was on her mind. "The thing is, I don't remember any of it."

Wyatt wasn't quite following her train of thought. "You don't remember what the nurse said?"

"No, I mean I don't…." Lucy shook her head in an attempt to dispel what surely must be some kind of glitch in her own thinking, but it didn't help in the slightest. "I have a brain tumor – a _cancerous_ one? And I'm _pregnant_?" She pressed her hands to her swollen stomach, gawking at it in near horror. "How is this even _possible_? I didn't…I haven't…Noah and I…I mean, we've _never_ …."

"Noah? What's _he_ got to do with…?" His jaw falling open as the meaning behind Lucy's words finally sank in, Wyatt stared at her in stupefaction. Dr. Ramsey had warned him that Lucy might not recall the time immediately preceding her seizure. But if what Lucy was saying now was true, then she'd lost several _months_ worth of memories, not just a few measly hours. No wonder she'd had such a huge meltdown. Wyatt was on the verge of having one now, _too_. How had this _happened_? Was it the seizure, or was the cancer eating away at her mind _that_ quickly? "God damn it!" he cursed, not even realizing that he'd spoken the words aloud. They needed to get her started on treatment _now –_ before she lost anything else – before she lost everything that made her _her_ – before _he_ lost her.

At the sound of Wyatt's curse – a curse that didn't come anywhere close to expressing how _she_ felt about the situation, Lucy raised her watery, red-rimmed eyes again to his. "What happened to me, Wyatt?" she asked, her voice quavering. "And why don't I remember any of it?"

Inhaling deeply despite the growing ache in his chest, Wyatt willed himself to remain level-headed for her sake. He gripped both of her hands gently in his own, and smoothed his thumbs calmingly along the insides of her wrists. "I'm so sorry, Lucy. I know this must feel like some crazy nightmare to you right now. But we're going to figure it out, and then we're going to fix it, alright? I promise – we're going to fix _everything_."

He waited for her acknowledgement before clambering from the bed. "Good. Now the first thing we need to do is get the doctor in here to answer some questions. I'll be right back," he assured her, reluctantly releasing her hands.

Watching as he strode from the room, Lucy marveled for the umpteenth time at what an amazing man Wyatt was. The poor guy probably had a list a mile long of things that he'd _rather_ be doing, yet here he was, committing himself to helping _her_ , with no benefit whatsoever to himself. God, she loved him so much. Why, if she had to wake up to an alternate reality, couldn't it have been one in which he loved her, too?

Snorting at her own ridiculousness, Lucy promptly chased that thought from her mind. There was literally no timeline, no universe, no possible reality _whatsoever_ in which Wyatt Logan would _ever_ give his heart to anyone other than the wife that he'd so tragically lost. He'd made it more than clear – from practically the moment that he'd realized that time travel was real – that next to taking out Garcia Flynn, getting Jessica back was his top priority. Even if his efforts to do so hadn't worked _yet_ , it was only a matter of time before they did.

No, there was absolutely no way that Wyatt could or would ever be hers, and to even _wish_ otherwise was, quite simply, foolish. Lucy might be a lot of things, but she _definitely_ wasn't a fool. Besides, she mused, scooting back towards the head of the bed, and tucking the pillows behind her now aching back – she had _far_ more important things to concern herself with right now than _love_ , if what that nurse had said earlier were to be believed. Like surviving long enough to meet the child that she had absolutely _no_ recollection whatsoever of conceiving, for instance. Dear lord, how had her life become so _complicated_ , she wondered. Closing her weary, tear-filled eyes, she willed Wyatt to hurry back with the doctor. She needed answers, and she needed them _now_.


End file.
